Books that moved you as a child

[JimW]

No idea - early teens may count.

Of course, what I mean is I was a child genius :ahem:
But honestly didn't find it hard, got completely into the world. I've re-read it not so long ago and I clearly missed some of the allusions but think I got what Hoban was driving at.

 

[madamv]

All these books involved caring. I only really registered that as I was searching for them to take pics.

The borrowers fascinated me. I also loved the secret garden and little women.
And another which involved hang gliding but I have no idea what that was called. I was about 14 so 1984 ish....

 

[goldenecitrone]

Another Alan Garner reader here - Moon of Gomrath and Weirdstone of Brisingamen - in fact, I devoured them all. The Secret Garden was momentous for me - the loneliness theme which permeated the book resonated throughout my childhood...and, as an obsessive gardener, it's influence has extended across half a century.

I loved the Weirdstone of Brisingamen and got my dad to drive us out to Alderley Edge one winter weekend. Spooky place on a winter's day, made even spookier after reading the book when I was nine years old.

Also remember crying at the end of Watership Down a year later. First time I'd ever cried at the end of a book. And the last too, I think.

 

[madamv]

I managed to get a copy of the dragons handbook for my daughter. It's a quick read but shoomed me straight back to being 7 and reading in my bed....

 

[Looby]

And if anyone thinks the newish Narnia films are dire then I dare you to seek out the 90s BBC adapt of Lion, Witch &


its beyond shit

I love it!

 

[goldenecitrone]

Going even further back I've just remembered reading this when I was about six. Bleak and terrifying.

 

[Looby]

When the wind blows had a big impact on me. We read it at school and I was already freaked out by nuclear weapons and war in general really. I had nightmares after I read it.

They didn't move me but I loved the Faraway Tree stories and they're making a film so I'm chuffed.

 

[wayward bob]

Also remember crying at the end of Watership Down a year later. First time I'd ever cried at the end of a book.

snap.

 

[goldenecitrone]

snap.

Great minds bob, great minds. And great tear ducts, too.

 

[maomao]

John Wyndham's Tripods series which I read before the tv series was on so must have been about 9. Was the first science fiction I'd read.

 

[Orang Utan]

Read it in my early teens, is.that older than we mean here?

Let's not be proscriptive. Hell, tell us about books that moved you as an adult too. It will all be interesting.

 

[porp]

As a child (11-ish), 'When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit'. I found the sense of threatened violence, dislocation, and the end of childhood innocence very moving. Rattling good story as well.

'Tuppence to Cross the Mersey'. Probably the same age . Again, a comfortable middle class life is brought to an abrupt end by circumstance (I'm seeing a theme here).

Later on - 16-ish - 'Down and Out in Paris and London'. Not getting into an Orwell argument here, but I remember finding what I might now see as poverty tourism, as something incredibly exciting. Not sure how to put it, but growing up in a very unworldly family, it was an early encounter with a broader way of seeing how life might be lived. Not very well put, but I can't find the words.

 

[Belushi]

I've been thinking that not many books moved me as a boy (I was dead keen on war) but I remember one, a ladybird book when I must have been 3 or 4, which thanks to the wonder of the interweb I've managed to track down.

 

[Orang Utan]

Is the rabbit or the boy the runaway? Or is that the point? I'm moved already!

 

[Belushi]

The Rabbit. Given the circumstances of my early life, I can look back now and appreciate why that book had such a big impact on my little self. it was all about abandonment.

 

[porp]

Oh yes, and maybe when I was 17. Brideshead Revisited. The sense of regret, missed chances and decline - should not really speak to a boy of 17 but it did. The English country house means nothing to me nor did it then - but the celebration of what Waugh saw as worth preserving in art and architecture certainly did spark an interest in me. The relationship between Charles Ryder and Sebastian Flyte appeals less now that I am much older, but at the time it was a strange sort of comfort to an awkward boy who didnt really fit in anywhere. As I get older and re-read it, the later parts of the book I find much more moving.

 

[Sirena]

When I was about 14, I read 'A Clergyman's Daughter' by George Orwell and I was depressed for days afterwards.

 

[Orang Utan]

The Selfish Giant and Under the Hawthorne Tree had real emotional impacts on me as a child. I can't quite explain why the Selfish Giant did, it was probably just a moving sentiment, however Under the Hawthorne tree is about a family during the Irish famine and I read it shortly after one of the times we moved back to Ireland and it is a tragic and moving story but it made me connect with that part of Irish history that I hadn't been told very much about. I was also coming under a fair bit of anti-English abuse (I am Irish but had been living in England for a few years and had an English accent -when I lived in England I got anti-irish stuff nd our house was frequently raided by police :roll eyes: ) so it helped me to intellectually and emotionally connect with that resentment. There's also an infant death which made me weep as I was coming to terms with the death of my sister as well. So it touched me in many different ways and made me realise how powerful a book can be; when you read the right book at the right time it can be a transformative thing and that book really did move me

Making some serious notes here for Xmas presents for my impressionable 9 year old boy, never having been a 9 year old boy and - more importantly - never having been him, I don't know which book will have the killer devastating effect on him. For me it was The World According to Garp when I was 15.

Struwwelpeter also had a profound effect when I was 8 but not necessarily a positive one!

The Rabbit. Given the circumstances of my early life, I can look back now and appreciate why that book had such a big impact on my little self. it was all about abandonment.

I don't think it's possible to predict what will affect a child or even an adult. What is wonderful about books is that even the author can be unaware of the resonance that may reverberate around an individual's mind. We all bring our own issues to these texts.

 

[goldenecitrone]

I'm glad I got into reading as a youngster. In later life it's always been comforting to know that others are fully aware of the absurdity of human existence.

 

[Kaka Tim]

John Wyndham's Tripods series which I read before the tv series was on so must have been about 9. Was the first science fiction I'd read.

(pedant mode) It was john christopher who wrote the tripod books - but they are great kids sci-fi. They should re-do a TV version.

 

[ManchesterBeth]

As a child?
Definitely The Tragedy of Rostem and Sohrab from the Shahnameh. Not a book, I know, I know.

As a teenager?
The Picture of Dorian Gray.
Waiting for Godot (play.)
Lord Of the Flies
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
A Thousand blessed sons/The Kite Runner.

As a young adult?
A Rebours.
Murphy.
Dubliners.
The Flea Palace.
The Blind Owl.

 

[Orang Utan]

I've just ordered The Tripods on DVD. I always just assumed it would never be available, rather than seek it out.
John Christopher also did Chocky, if anyone remembers that.
He also wrote an adult post-apocalyptic novel called The Death Of Grass, which I need to read.

 

[Orang Utan]

As a child?
Definitely The Tragedy of Rostem and Sohrab from the Shahnameh. Not a book, I know, I know.

As a teenager?
The Picture of Dorian Gray.
Waiting for Godot (play.)
Lord Of the Flies
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
A Thousand blessed sons/The Kite Runner.

As a young adult?
A Rebours.
Murphy.
Dubliners.
The Flea Palace.
The Blind Owl.

Aye, but why? 200 words or less on each please.

 

[maomao]

It was john christopher who wrote the tripod books

 

[ManchesterBeth]

Aye, but why? 200 words or less on each please.

Nah, too long. and cheesy.

I'll just say that all the books I've listed have really resonated with me on a psychological/philosophical level. Whether that be desires, the meaning(s) of mundanity, morality as an institution, the nuances of every day experience (particularly as regards The Flea Palace and Dubliners.)

Also. The Unbearable Lightness of Being.

What we tend to miss in critiques of eastern bloc countries is a profound sense of humanism. We criticise authoritarianism, centralisation, bureaucratisation, but we never think to conceptualise the experiences insofar as a Nietzschean affirmation is concerned. An active force, if you will. Practice, not praxis.

 

[maomao]

John Christopher also did Chocky, if anyone remembers that.

I remember the book which was great. Apparently there was a tv series of that too but it was on children's ITV which my fucking prick big brother never let us watch. Seriously, I never saw Metal Mickey or half the shows my mates were on about.

 

[Belushi]

Seriously? You had to watch Blue fucking Peter instead of Chocky?

 

[Belushi]

What we tend to miss in critiques of eastern bloc countries is a profound sense of humanism. We criticise authoritarianism, centralisation, bureaucratisation, but we never think to conceptualise the experiences insofar as a Nietzschean affirmation is concerned. An active force, if you will. Practice, not praxis.

I posted a Ladybird book about a bloody rabbit, are we on the same thread?

 

[maomao]

Seriously? You had to watch Blue fucking Peter instead of Chocky?

Yes, complete fucking tragedy.

 

[Belushi]

Yes, complete fucking tragedy.

tbh I had to watch Swap Shop instead of Tiswas because my Mum worried Spit the Dog would encourage us to spit